Usable water throughout the United States may be at risk. After years of unfinished studies, members of Congress have called on the Environmental Protection Agency to reopen three cases of water pollution that may have connections to hydraulic fracturing.

The EPA should reopen these cases in order to ensure the health and safety of residents in past, present and future fracking areas. As a federal regulatory agency, it is their duty to do so.

On April 1, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) along with seven other lawmakers, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy questioning the agency’s decision to terminate investigations in Dimock, Pa., Parker County, Texas and Pavilion, WY.

The EPA had begun investigations previously in the three cases specifically mentioned in the letter, but only one investigation was completed. The other two investigations were dropped and moved to be completed by outside industries or state agencies.

In the completed investigation released in July 2012, the EPA found no evidence of water contamination by Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation in the town of Dimock, Pa. A year later, an internal EPA PowerPoint presentation was obtained by the L.A. Times, which regional EPA staffers created.

The PowerPoint held evidence concluding that “methane and other gases released during drillings, including air from the drillings, apparently cause significant damage to the water quality,” according to the L.A. Times in July 2013.

Though this goes against the official EPA findings, the agency has confirmed the PowerPoint presentation’s authenticity. The EPA has dismissed the findings, crediting them to one researcher’s thoughts on the issue.

With conflicting reports, the EPA should reopen this case to quell the uncertainty surrounding Dimock’s water. It is the EPA’s job to be an objective eye into the contaminated resource.

In the cases of Parker County, Texas and Pavilion, WY., the EPA had relinquished jurisdiction of water quality tests to other agencies and companies. The EPA should take back the jurisdiction in these cases.

The EPA dropped the investigation in Texas through a legal settlement, moving the water quality testing duties to Range Resources, the company who was fracking in the region in the first place.

While the EPA stands by the sampling results from Range Resources, it does recognize that there is a lack of quality assurance within the sampling, the inspector general wrote in an EPA report in December 2013.

Following this incident, the EPA decided to drop its investigation into groundwater pollution in Pavilion, WY., though first drafts of findings concluded that water contamination was likely caused by fracking chemicals. In June 2013, the EPA announced that it would instead hand the study over to the state of Wyoming.

This investigation will be funded, at least in part, by EnCana Corporation’s U.S. oil and gas subsidiary, which owns the gas field in Pavilion.

In both of these cases, it is necessary that the EPA reopen this case to test water quality in an objective way.

As fracking continues across our country, this is an ongoing issue. While there may be no conclusive evidence thus far connecting fracking and water contamination, objective studies will help us to determine the safety of our people.

To keep our citizens healthy and safe, it is imperative that the EPA reopens these three groundwater pollution cases throughout the U.S. With the amount of uncertainty and subjective study, the EPA must take this chance to objectively study.

Meg Callaghan is an environmental studies major at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at mlcallag@syr.edu. 

Published on April 10, 2014 at 1:17 am